Smoot Lays The Smack Down (Redskins vs. Colts)

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by NLC1054

I'm not saying you're wrong about safeties creeping up. Nor am I saying it's impossible to throw deep on a cover 2 defense.

I'm saying the Colts never dropped a safety into the box the entire game. I'm saying, in this one particular game, of which John Beck is taking criticism for, in which he was instructed by his offensive coordinator to take what the defense gave him, this particular defense dropped seven guys into coverage on nearly every down.

As I said before, their safeties were so deep, they were rarely on the screen. Keeping the defense honest, in this case, in this one particular case, was a moot point, because the safeties were never in the box, and were essentially being "kept honest" the entire game.

When they did bring a safety on a blitz, Beck picked it up and hit Santana Moss on a cross route that went for the first down. They only dropped that safety into the box when the Redskins were on their 20 in the red zone.

The rest of the time, despite the short passes and the running game, the Colts never put a safety in the box. You can't "keep a defense honest" when they've already shown that they have no intention of letting you get deep on them, short passes and run game be damned.

I fully expect the gameplan to be different versus the Ravens. I'm just stating that I don't think it's fair to criticize John for not "taking a shot" to keep a defense honest that was already paying things pretty honest.

I've made essentially this argument as a defense of a pretty efficient Mark Brunell before, so I'm sympathetic to what you're saying.

Modern passing offense has exploded since 2006 though, when the cover two was most prominent. You certainly don't have to throw deep to beat some of the more discipline-based defenses. Those true cover two teams are never going to cheat up on the shorter routes because the philosophy is to give up certain areas of the field. You can win simply by out executing them. They just like their chances.

The problem comes now that the cover two isn't prevalent anymore. You're basically certain to see a number of man to man coverages against any team in any game. Teams that can't go deep against man are going to get destroyed, because their run game is just going to get outnumbered. But thats a somewhat new development in the last four years.

If the Colts really did nothing but sit in two deep all day, which I don't doubt, it's only because it was the preseason. And that would explain John Beck's 14-17 day: he just killed a predictable coverage, as he should have.